Killercon

by William Ollie

  “What,” he said, “are you doing here?”

  “I invited her along, thought we might need a little backup.”

  “Yeah,” Bree said. “Never know when ya might need a hot lookin’ chick to distract the bad guys.”

  “Get us chased by some bad guys, more like it,” Bryan said.

  “Hey, you’re the one had to go and sign my tits.”

  “Ho!” Larry said, as an elderly woman snapped her head around, giving Bree a disapproving look before moving along her way.

  Red-faced, Bryan thought, nothing good can come of this.

  Larry released the handle on his luggage and stepped between them. Looping an arm around both their waists, he said, “You ready, Sister Sarah?”

  “Sister Sarah?” Bryan said.

  To Bryan’s surprise, Bree put an arm around Larry’s waist, smiled and said, “You’re nuts, Larry.”

  They started down a long passageway, beneath a multi-sectioned, two-story plate-glass-roof. The glass structure curved all the way down until it became a wall that looked out on the runways. Several travelers floated along on an automated sidewalk that ran down the middle of the blue-and-white tiled floor, but most just wandered along beside it. One guy walked briskly down the moving platform, stealing glances over his shoulder at a woman who rolled her eyes and quickly turned away, trying hard—Bryan thought—to act like she didn’t know who he was. On their way to the revolving sidewalk, Bree in front, Bryan and Larry lagging behind, Larry nodded at Bree, smiled and whispered to Bryan, “She’s my mule.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Not much of an Eastwood fan, are you?”

  “Ah,” Bryan said, not knowing whether he should be happy Larry had figured out a way to sneak some herb down south, or pissed at him for taking advantage of someone so young and impressionable. But then he thought about how quick she had been to raise her shirt back at Fast Eddie’s Pool Hall, and realized she probably wasn’t as innocent as she looked.

  Bryan looked up at the thin white trail of a jet airplane racing high across the sky.

  Grinning, Larry elbowed him in the side and tilted his head at Bree’s ass, which was swinging back and forth in such an exaggerated motion, Bryan thought she was doing it to impress them. You’re both nuts, he thought, but halfway down the corridor, he realized that he had yet to take his eyes off of it.

  Larry was the first to reach the security checkpoint area they all would have to pass through on their way into the U S Airways concourse. He showed his boarding pass to a young black man, who barely glanced Larry’s way as he tossed his keys on a conveyor belt, and then stepped through the steel frame of a metal detector and gathered them back up. The guy didn’t seem too interested in Bryan, either. But when Bree stepped forward, his head snapped around, his lips parted and his eyes grew wide. He stood at attention, back straight, his thick, muscular arms bulging against the sleeves of his navy-blue uniform shirt. Bree winked at him, lips pursing as she stepped up to the metal detector. The guy’s eyes never left her as she walked through it.

  “See what I mean?” she said when they continued down the hallway.

  “No shit,” Larry answered. “Osama’s head could’ve been sticking outa your suitcase and the guy wouldn’t even have noticed it.”

  Bryan chuckled as they wheeled their luggage down the concourse, past fast food joints and snack bars. On the right was the U S Airways Club. To the left, a bookstore. Further down, rows of seats sat in front of a wall of plate glass windows. Several people stood looking out at the runway. Every now and then a plane would land, or one would take off. Next to them, a middle-aged woman wearing too much makeup stood behind a counter, back to the wall, eyes on a computer monitor. To her left was a door that led to a narrow hallway that would take them to their airplane.

  They followed Larry to gate 23, where Larry looked at his watch. “We’ve got thirty minutes to kill. Want to see if we can’t get a drink or something?”

  “Nah,” Bryan said. “I want to check out the bookstore, see if any of mine are in it.”

  “Ooh,” Bree said. “Me, too.”

  Several people were seated a few rows away from the ticket agent: a man and wife and a couple of kids, a young woman reading a magazine, a teenager wearing a head set, bobbing to the music as he stared listlessly toward the runway. They rolled their luggage down the concourse and made their way to the bookstore, past a guy standing in front of the Men’s room to the left of them.

  “Get a load’a Rooster Boy.” Bree muttered, drawing a muffled chuckle from Larry.

  The guy’s eyes were blue, his eyebrows blonde; his neatly-trimmed hair dyed a ridiculous off shade of red that bordered on orange. He wore a skintight pair of white pants and no shirt, an unbuttoned tie-dyed cloth vest over his bare chest. His stomach was flat, his muscular body well-defined. Bryan figured he must have been some kind of gym rat coming up from the south—somebody who never came out of the gym, because his skin was pastry-white—and that he would freeze his ass off if he went any further north. He had a diamond stud in his left ear, and he winked when Bryan walked by him.

  In the bookstore, Bryan and Bree went to the fiction section and Larry walked over to a magazine rack, chuckling as he leafed through a Mad Magazine sporting a cartoon caricature of the President of the United States dressed as Dr. Suess’ The Cat in the Hat on its cover.

  “I’ll be damned,” Bryan said as he drew one of three copies of his latest novel, A Cut Above, from the shelf.

  “Wow,” Bree said. “You’re right there beside Stephen King.”

  A fact that had not gone unnoticed by Bryan, who thought it to be pretty neat, himself. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a ballpoint pen, clicked it and scratched out Best Wishes, Bryan Kenney on the book’s inside cover. He handed it to Bree, and then signed the remaining copies and returned them to the shelf. Then, clicking the pen, he slid it back into his pocket.

  “What’s this one about?”

  “What else? Murder and mayhem, with a dash of deviant sex.”

  Bree laughed. Eyes sparkling, she said, “All my favorites!”

  “Yeah, mine, too,” said Larry, who had stepped up behind them.

  Bree returned the paperback to the shelf. “Hope whoever buys this appreciates it.”

  Bryan picked it up, glanced at his watch, and said, “You guys about ready?”

  “Haven’t you, like, read that already?” Bree asked him.

  “Yeah, this one’s for you.”

  “Cool!” she said.

  On the way to the check out register, walking between Bryan and Larry, she looped an arm through Bryan’s, looked up and said, “Wanta join the mile high club?”

  Bryan, who couldn’t believe she had said it, shook his head. “You’re nutty.”

  “What’s a matter?”

  “Maybe I’m already a member.”

  Larry, frowning like a twelve-year-old, said, “How about me? I wanta join.”

  “Get real, pal,” Bree said, and the three of them started laughing.

  Bryan checked his watch as they left the bookstore, and looked over at the restroom. He was glad to see the goofball was no longer there, because he needed to take a leak and he didn’t want to be bothered by some gay-looking guy cruising airport bathrooms for a sex partner, if that’s what the guy was doing, if he even was gay. Who knows, maybe he was just weird. He definitely had that going for him. In spades!

  “I’ll catch up to you,” he told his friends, smiling. “Gotta drain the old lizard.”

  “Don’t forget to shake it,” Bree called over her shoulder, rolling her luggage as she and Larry continued down the concourse.

  Bryan pulled the door open and stepped into a well-lit bathroom whose light green walls were spotless; the white-tiled floor gleaming beneath his feet as he crossed the room to a row of urinals and parked his luggage. He unzipped his fly and somebody grunted, aimed himself at the urinal and somebody moaned. He smiled, picturing some poor co
nstipated bastard trying to squeeze off a loaf. Then came a thump, the slap of skin on skin and another thump.

  Somebody groaning out, “Please.”

  A high-pitched, nasal voice grunting back, “That’s it, bitch. Beg for it.”

  “P…please.”

  “You love it!”

  Bryan looked over his shoulder at the stall the voices were coming from, and saw a pair of white pants gathered around a couple of thick ankles—he almost laughed, thinking the legs attached to them were probably as smooth and clean-shaven as his wife’s.

  “That’s it,” the high-pitched voice sang out, and its partner grunted. “Ungh, ungh!” And there was no doubting what was going on in that stall, now. “Take it! Take it all!”

  “Hey!” Bryan shouted. “Get a room, why don’t ya!”

  The door flew open and Rooster Boy stood in front of Bryan, waving a cock so huge it would’ve made Dirk Diggler blush. “I knew you wanted some of this!” He squeezed it, pointed it at Bryan and crooned, “Get in line, sweetie. I’ll be right with you!”

  Then he slammed the door shut and went back to his partner.

  Bryan shook his own cock, which by now seemed woefully inadequate. He zipped his fly, grabbed his luggage and hurried across the bathroom, through the door and out into the corridor. By the time he got to Larry and Bree, he was almost breathless.

  “You’re not going to believe this shit,” he said.

  Larry raised his eyebrows.

  “Rooster Boy was in a stall, fucking the shit outa somebody.”

  “Eww!” Bree said.

  “No fucking way!” came Larry right behind her.

  “Way, Dude, way. Big time!”

  Grinning, Larry shook his head. “Unfucking believable.”

  A lilting voice came over the loudspeaker, “Flight 182 now boarding gate 23. All passengers for Flight 182, non-stop to Orlando, Florida, please present your boarding passes and picture I.D.s at gate 23.”

  Bree joined the line of departing travelers, and Larry followed her, rolling his luggage behind him. Bryan, tipping his own luggage back on its wheels, saw Rooster Boy coming down the concourse with a self-satisfied smile on his face. He saw Bryan and struck a body builder’s pose, torso forward, grinning and flexing his arms in an upside down U while a little girl in line with her parents pointed at him and laughed.

  Bryan chuckled, too, shaking his head at how idiotic the guy looked. But he had to give him one thing: his muscles were huge, and he had the biggest whanger Bryan had ever laid eyes on.

  * * *

  In the airplane, pushing its way toward Orlando, Bryan sat beside a little old lady from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who had been talking non-stop since they had taken off from Charlotte about the little farm she had grown up on. Non-stop. Even though Bryan kept his eyes glued on a Michael Marshall Smith paperback he had fished out of his suitcase prior to storing it in the overhead compartment. Every once in a while he would nod his head, or grunt out an unenthusiastic reply. He didn’t want to be rude, but damned if this little old lady wasn’t about to drive him crazy. Bryan definitely planned on introducing her to Benjamin X when he got back from Horrorcon. A little snipping of the tongue would do nicely, and suit her just right.

  One row ahead, across the aisle, Larry sat next to Bree, smiling and carrying on what looked to be a friendly conversation. Bryan was jealous. Not because Larry was sitting with Bree, but that he wasn’t listening to some old crone drone on and on about some cow she had milked back in the stone ages. They had gotten lucky. The airplane had ample legroom, not like the last flight he and Carrie had suffered through, cramped up and cooped up in a twin engine prop, knees shoved into the seatbacks, Bryan’s head touching the bottom of the luggage compartment. The plane actually had two restrooms at the tail—one on each side of the aisle.

  “We had this chicken—ol’ Georgie only had one eye.”

  Bryan sighed and looked up at Larry, and wondered how hard it would be to pluck that little old lady’s eye out, and if doing so would actually keep her from talking about her stupid chicken. Bree whispered something into Larry’s ear. He laughed and nodded his head, looked back at Bryan and smiled as she stood up from her window seat and made her way past Larry, and walked to the rear of the plane. A couple of minutes later, Larry got up, and he too moved up the aisle past Bryan, grinning from ear to ear.

  Bryan went back to his book, read a couple of pages, turned the page and read a couple more.

  “Ol’ Georgie would disappear for days at a time.”

  I wish to hell you would disappear, or at least shut the hell up. “Uh huh.”

  “We always figured he was making his way ‘round all the other hen houses.” Grannie gave Bryan a playful elbow to the ribs. “Know what I mean?”

  Christ!

  Bryan stared at his book as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said, read a couple of pages, turned another and tried to read some more, but he couldn’t concentrate because his in-flight companion kept rattling on and on about good ol’ one-eyed Georgie, King of the fucking hen house. He glanced across the aisle. Bree wasn’t back, neither was Larry. He turned and glanced toward the rear of the plane, and Granny laughed. “Ol’ Georgie had younguns all up and down Harlen County.”

  “He did, huh?”

  “Oh yeah, that ol’ boy got around, lemme tell ya.”

  You already told me!

  Bryan took a deep breath, counted to ten and slowly let it out, cursing himself for not bringing his MP3 player along.

  Bree walked past his seat, and Larry followed close behind, winking down at Bryan as he passed by him. They took their seats and Bree leaned over. Resting her head on Larry’s shoulder, she closed her eyes and smiled. Moments later, a male flight attendant came down the aisle. He was young, slim and trim with a slick, clean-shaven head. A gold hoop hung from his right earlobe as he stopped beside Larry, leaned down and whispered in his ear. Bryan could have sworn he said, “Congratulations.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Red33 walked out of a pawnshop on the north side of Jacksonville, Florida. He had left the interstate looking for a bite to eat and stumbled onto the little shop, with its tarnished banjos and shopworn guitars hanging inside its dirty storefront window. He walked into the place looking for a weapon. Any old knife would have done the trick—he didn’t expect much. He walked out with a fourteen-inch hunting knife, the brand new stainless-steel blade serrated, just like the one back home. The red and black sure-grip handle fit his palm as if it had been custom made, and he got back into the car running a finger across the flat of the blade.

  It had been custom made, all right.

  For Bryan Kenney.

  It had been a weeklong marathon of airports and motels, road food and late night flights back home. Lucky for him, he had a business which damn near ran itself. Not so lucky for that smarmy little bitch in Asheville, or the woman he’d taken back to his house. But the crown jewel was Baltimore. He’d been wanting to pay a visit to that snooty cocksucker for a long time now, and now that he had he could finally get down to business. He could hardly wait to see Bryan Kenney up close and personal, to see the look on his face when he pulled his blade. Because that’s what he was going to do, pull that big-assed hunting knife, show it to him and see what he would do about it—going by the wimpy looking guy pictured on his books, and his whiny, bullshit posts, probably not much. Red had a bet going with himself: that Bryan Kenney would piss himself before the knife went in. And that he would beg for his life.

  He’d left Atlanta this morning, smiling because everything was falling into place. The chickens were all coming to roost, and Red planned to slaughter every last one of them. His flight had taken him to Jacksonville, not Orlando, because he didn’t want to take any chances. Who could know what might happen? Some bumbling doughnut-muncher might stumble onto him like an idiotic movie cop, just as Red was leaving town.

  And they were damn sure going to be looking for someone after he was finished
.

  Red, the first-born son of a computer programmer, was a self-made-man. He had taught himself networking and hardware, operating systems, the bits and bytes of advanced computer languages, following his father’s footsteps with a colossal imprint dear old dad could never have matched. By his freshman year of college he had his own one-man software company. By the time graduation rolled around, Red had twenty-three fulltime employees and a suite of offices in a downtown Atlanta high-rise. Now, seven years later, his company occupied a building of its own—owned lock, stock, and barrel by Red33, the kid who’d started out with a computer and a game, and a burning desire to know how it all worked. His client list stretched across the country and into Canada. He could sell it all and never have to work another day, but why bother? As it was, he barely worked now. He was riding a cash cow. A man with plenty of time for the finer things of life, he could do whatever he wanted: stay out late, spend his mornings in bed, his afternoons at the gym. If he wanted to lie around reading a book, he could. If he wanted to roam the early morning hours, researching his next novel, who could stop him? Not the police, certainly not Bryan Kenney, who wouldn’t know what a dead body looked like if he found one lying in his bed. But Red knew what a corpse looked like, and he knew what happened when a body was torn apart—he’d done the research to prove it. Not like the Bryan Kenneys and Graham Greystones of the world, who relied on uninspired imaginations to bring such things to life. Sure, they could string a decent sentence or two together, but they had never gotten their hands wet—they’d never gotten it right, either. He knew this because he’d read their books. If they weren’t such mealy-mouthed pricks, they could have worked together with him to produce an award-winning novel that would have shocked the senses, rocked the literary world. But those highhanded sons of bitches turned on Red the minute he opened his mouth, or in this case, sent his first post along to that goddamn message board.